How to Handle Intoxicated Interviewees

Interviewing Intoxicated Individuals: Specific Issues and How to Deal With Them Unfortunately, there are gaps in procedures in regards to how to deal with intoxicated suspects and witnesses or those individuals being interviewed who have a substance abuse problem. This lack of clear guidelines often causes confusion and other issues when law enforcement has to interview such individuals.

Law enforcement has to deal with a number of issues here, including how intoxication may impact judgment and recollection of events, as well as the potential to increase false confessions for intoxicated suspects. Intoxicated individuals are hard to get through too. This goes for suspects, victims, and witnesses. Still, officers have to deal with intoxicated individuals on a regular basis. One report suggests that "5% of U.S. police officers believed that they commonly encounter intoxicated witnesses whilst working on cases" (Palmer et al., 2008).

One major issue law enforcement has to deal with in regards to interviewing intoxicated victims and witnesses is the fact that their intoxication may have impaired their ability to understand what happened and accurately report it to police. Unfortunately, in recent studies, "that intoxicated witnesses were less accurate and provided less information than sober witnesses when interviewed about a staged event" (Evans et al., 2009). The accuracy of witness and victim statements must be high in order to help law enforcement actually get further in the investigation of the crime.

Yet, working with intoxicated individuals makes this difficult. Here, the research suggests that "the intoxicated may show unique patterns of memory impairment that require specific attention from law enforcement and the legal community" (Evans et al., 2009). Even worse, when the witness or victim does sober up, their recollection of the events that took place while intoxicated may still be inaccurate. The situation gets even more difficult when the person who is intoxicated is the victim of the crime.

In this case, it is difficult for law enforcement to get the real story of how the crime went down. Unfortunately, "There is further evidence that heavy drinking increases the probability of sexual victimization: Alcohol use increased the risk and severity of sexual assault victimization in college, and 37% of over 1,000 rape victims tested positive for alcohol" (Evans et al., 2009). Yet, the individual's intoxication may make it difficult to prove that a crime was even committed, especially in regards to sexual assaults.

For example, alcohol has very clear negative impacts on memory. Alcohol is one of the most commonly used intoxicating substances, and thus law enforcement may find they have to deal with intoxicated individuals with alcohol more than anything.

Essentially, "Alcohol myopia posits that alcohol affects cognitive functioning either (a) through restricting the range of cues that can be perceived in a situation because disproportionate attention is given to immediate situational cues at the expense of weaker peripheral cues, or (b) by reducing the ability to process and extract meaning from the perceived information" (Evans et al., 2009). If a witness or victim is drunk, their version of events may be completely misshapen.

Alcohol can cause individuals to misinterpret events, loose their short-term memory faster, and even generate false memories (Evans et al., 2009). Additionally, alcohol can often cause individuals to black out, loosing their entire memory of events. Thus, when an individual is intoxicated, it makes it difficult to rely on their recollection of events surrounding a crime.

Here, the research suggests that "witnesses were seen as most accurate and believable when they were sober at the time of the interview, and especially so if they were also sober during the crime as well" (Evans et al., 2009). This often leads law enforcement officials to have less faith n the ability of individuals who are intoxicated. Research does show that many investigators have less trust in the reports they take from intoxicated witnesses and victims, which can often lead to issues in investigations.

There are other issues in regards to interviewing intoxicated suspects as well. When a suspect is intoxicated, he or she may not fully understand the nature of the looming charges against them. Thus, "suspects who were intoxicated at the time a crime took place may find themselves more prone to coerced -- internalized false confessions specifically" (Evans et al., 2009).

Intoxicated suspects are more prone to allowing aggressive interviewing techniques convince them of a certain account of events, which may incriminate them beyond what they might have done or would normally do while sober. Here, the research shows that "intoxicated suspects were generally more likely, or just as likely, to waive their Miranda rights and to incriminate themselves as sober suspects" (Evans et al., 2009). Moreover, withdrawal may also be an issue for individuals with substance abuse problems.

In the depths of a withdrawal state, a suspect or witness may rush the interview in order to get access to their drug of choice. There are a number of methods law enforcement agencies employ in regards to dealing with such a vulnerable population. First and foremost, it is generally accepted practice to wait until an individual sobers up before starting the interview process. This often means sending a witness home or holding a suspect overnight before interviewing them the next day when they are not intoxicated.

Unfortunately, the research shows that more investigators just start the interview, even though the individual is intoxicated (Evans et al., 2009). This only leads to further problems. Clearly, it is best to wait to start an interview, unless there is some drastic time sensitive issues related to the case that demands immediate interviews. Often times, police will interview an.